As my client, Elizabeth Benefiel, said,
"It takes a village to publish a book."

During
my 20+ years as a professional proofreader/editor, I've worked on projects in
areas including:

fiction/non-fiction

children's
books

dust
jacket development

interviews and oral histories

newsletters/brochures
and print

PR and marketing

media copy

computer IT technology

entertainment

historical

industrial

law enforcement

psychology

real
estate

religious

scientific

screenplays

teleseminars/webinars

term papers

theses

websites

the
self-help fieldand much

more, including the current escalation in eBooks

I
give 100% commitment and personalized attention to all my clients, no matter
whether an accomplished author or a first-time writer.A proud accomplishment has been working with motivational speaker and life
coach Vic Johnson (http://vicjohnson.com)
to bring many of his personal and client eBooks to life.

In today's
busy world
where attention spans have become much
shorter, a writer needs to have their
message resonate with the reader's logic and heartstrings
profoundly, crisply,
succinctly and quickly.

Since
the explosion of eBooks into the literary
world, many of my clients are first-time,
hopeful authors. The process can be
very intimidating and confusing, so I'm
here to help you calmly and carefully meander
through the waters of traditional or self-publishing.
Not only am I a classically trained
editor, I have a strong marketing/PR/graphic
design background, so I'll also help you
traverse those areas as well.

EDITING

General light proofreading
is correcting
errors in English grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, sentence
fragments, website links, etc.This is
usually done if the author is more experienced and doesn't
need a great deal of
editing.

Copyediting
-- often for the less experienced
individual -- is a concentrated, detailed review of the consistency, flow and
accuracy of their writing.Spellchecking
catches only 20% of errors, if that (i.e., homonyms like to, too, two; there,
their, there; pear, pare and pair are difficult to catch); professional copyediting catches everything else.

Please
don't hesitate to ask for arecap
of my editing process to
give you a better idea of what to expect
while working together. For example...

Text
editing of documents for typos, grammar, repetitive or inaccurate words,
run-on sentences or too many sentence fragments, inconsistent names and
spellings, syntax, etc. against written or audio drafts.

Initially
it's the writer's
responsibility (or assistant or ghostwriter) to check
all factual statements, and to make
sure any scientific, degrees, mathematical, medical,
literary or musical terms are used accurately and consistently throughout.However, heavy copywriting assures those
areas are thoroughly researched and reworked for clarity and conciseness. As
a certified researcher I'm
more than willing to do an "archaeological fact dig" to
assure all facts are correct and
to prevent any plagiarism issues.
I double-check
spellings of persons, places, titles, technology terminology, historical
references if requested, and Plus red
flag anything the writer may not have caught.

Flow of
paragraphs to make sure they follow each other logically, and
transitionalize correctly.

Consistent
style and formatting, etc.

Heavy
copywriting tends to fall into the range of academic papers, technology,
textbooks, medical/psychology terminology, etc.The more difficult the text, the more
difficult the editing.

RATES

Industry standard for a manuscript is 250 words per page (i.e., a
10,000 word count book equates to roughly 40 pages). Therefore, I'd prefer
seeing it first to determine how much work will need to be done --
since
everyone's
work is different -- and then I'll
quote a rate based on the amount
of work that needs to be done, legibility and difficulty of content. Rates are normally based on typed
MS Word documents; however, I also work from handwritten notes.

Separate
fees apply to first typing a manuscript
from notes into a MS Word document, or transcribing
audio into a document.

Guaranteed
100% confidentiality (Non-Disclosure Agreements
can be provided upon request)!

PROCESS:

I
require a one-half down-payment to commence the project; then the final payment
is due prior to returning the edited document.Since almost all my clients are global, this is a mandatory requirement
as I have no recourse if they choose
not to pay (fortunately that has
never happened).I
accept PayPal and checks (however, the work will not be released until the check clears).

You'll email or mail the documents to be edited (preferably in the most current
Word program.Older programs tend to
have embedded macros or templates that aren't
compatible with newer systems.)

I'll
provide a first
draft edited document with
tracking changes turned on so you can see corrections and my comments. Plus a
document with all changes accepted and tracking changes turned off so you can
see the polished work.(Editing is very
subjective, so seeing all the mark-ups can be confusing and overwhelming.I always recommend reading the all-accepted
proof before looking at one with the changes. Shame on any editor who
doesn't provide both documents!)
We'll work together until
you feel confident your work is
ready to be published. (Many
editors charge for second, third
and beyond editings, but further
"tweakings" are included
in my initial fee.)

You'll provide a deadline which works much better
for me than leaving it open-ended
(unless you don't
have a particular
deadline; then I'll
do my best to get it back to
you as
soon as possible).

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions. I
look forward to bringing your work to
life in a very polished presentation.